21 12 / 2012
It’s that time of year once again, time to shop ‘til you drop, time to go off to Grandma’s and time to BAKE! By day, I have a desk job, so I do a lot of my shopping on the Internet, but I do occasionally take leave of my senses and go to the mall. Last Sunday, we traveled to Grandma’s house for the annual family Christmas gathering. It’s funny how you see your own kids getting older and bigger but don’t expect anyone else’s kids to have done the same.
Now, for the baking! I haven’t yet done my ohmygoshit’sChristmassoIhavetobakeeverything baking. I had already done 2 pumpkin rolls (1 to take and 1 for my husband and son) and I decided to some cupcakes as there would be a lot of kids at our gathering. I decided on a winter theme and came up with the “winter wonderland” cupcake.
Here’s the link to the white cupcake recipe:
http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/White-Cupcakes-Epicurious
I used a basic buttercream tinted blue using Wilton gel dye Light Blue. I made my snowflakes with white chocolate melting wafers and used my squeeze bottle to shape them. Oops…before I forget. I added a little peppermint extract to the white chocolate before forming the snowflakes. I then put coarse ground sugar on the chocolate to look like snow or ice crystals.
They were yummy…and I only brought 3 home!
08 6 / 2012
What happens when you combine chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter and chocolate brownies? YUM!!
I saw something similar to this on Pinterest. My curiosity was piqued because of my love affair with all things peanut butter.
Today, I decided to make an attempt at these little pieces of scrumptiousness.
First step: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
OK, I cheated. I had some Pillsbury ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookes (in the tube) in my fridge. Take an amount equal to or just less than the amount you would use to make a cookie and smoosh that into the bottom of your cupcake paper.
Second step: Take about 1-1/2 cups of peanut butter and about 1/4 cup of olive oil (that makes it healthy right?) and mix into a bowl. This will thin the peanut butter and make a “meltaway” consistency. Making you hungry yet?
Put the peanut butter meltaway on top of the chocolate chip batter.
Third step: OK…I cheated again. I used a box mix of brownies, the family sized box. Mix that up according to the directions on the box and place on top of the other mixtures in the cupcake paper.
Yippee!! It’s all put together and you are closer to the finished product!!
I put my oven rack on the highest setting because the cookie has a shorter baking time than the brownie. I didn’t want to have raw brownie with burned cookie. SO—put the trays in the oven and bake for 20 minutes give or take.
When the brownie is not still wet on the top, they are done. Allow them to cool completely before coming out of the cupcake pans so they do not fall apart.
This is the finished product.
